Insulating material.



PATENTE'D APR. 28, 1903.

W. R. WHITNEY. INSULATING MATERIAL.

APPLIOATION FILED MAY 24. 1902.

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UNITED STATES WVILLIS R. IVI-IITNEY,OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNORTO GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, A CORPORATION OF NEW YORK.

lNSU LATI'NG MATERIAL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 726,485, dated April28, 1903.

Application flled May 24, 1902. Serial No. 108,781. (No specimens.)

T0 at whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, WILLIS R. WHITNEY, a citizen of the United States,residing at Boston, county of Suffolk, State of Massachusetts, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Insulating Material, ofwhich the following is a specification.

With but little difficulty it is possible to blow glass into exceedinglythin sheets of several inches area, in which condition the glass becomesvery flexible. I find that a very valuable insulating material can beformed by compacting or pressing together sheets or flakes of this glasswith a suitable flexible binding material, such as shellac, boiledlinseed-oil, paraffin or other wax, or the like.

The novel features which are characteristic of my invention I have setforth with particularity in the appended claims, the invention itselfbeing described in detail in the following specification, which is to betaken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1represents the production of the glass sheets or flakes; Fig. 2, a modeof treating the glass with binding material, and Fig. 3 a finished sheetof the insulating material.

Fig. 1 shows a bulb of blown glass, the blowing of which has beencontinued until the walls of the bulb have been so reduced in thicknessthat the bulb has commenced to break into sheets or flakes, asindicated. In practice the bulb when it has reached this condition ofextreme thinness is broken or shattered into numbers of films or thinsheets,- which as they fall may be collected in a suitable receptacle.These sheets or flakes may be treated with a binding material in anumber of difierent ways, one of which is represented in Fig. 2, inwhich 1 is a receptacle for the binding material, which in the presentinstance may be paraffin-wax, maintained in a fluid condition by heatsuitably applied.

PATENT OFFICE.

Mounted within the tray or receptacle 1 is a cooperating tray 2, havinga bottom formed 4 of a cloth, wire screen, or the like. When the tray 2is superposed upon the tray 1, the insulating material in the tray 1passes up through the meshes of the tray 2, as will be readilyunderstood. Sheets or films of the 5 blown glass described above arethen spread evenly over the bottom of the tray 1 to any desired depth.After the glass has .been thoroughly saturated and has been matted downmore or less the tray 1 is lifted out of 5 the tray 2 by its handles 45, the surplus in-. sulating material then draining off through thescreen 3 into the tray 1. A light pressure may be applied to facilitatethe operation. The mass or sheet of treated glass sheets or flakes isthen stripped from the bottom of the tray2 and may then be pressed in asuitable press or permitted to dry and harden without pressure,-asdesired. The plate of insulating material may be then trimmed or cut upinto the shape desired-in the finished article, as indicated in Fig. 3.r

What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent of theUnited States, is

1. An insulating material formed of-very thin sheets or films of anartificial vitreous substancecemented or held together in the desiredshape by means of a suitable binder. 2. An insulating materialconsisting of very thin sheets or films of glass cemented together by aflexible binding material.

3. As an article of manufacture, a plate of insulating material formedof films or sheets of glass held together by a flexible bindingmaterial.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 22d day of May,1902.

WILLIS R. WHITNEY.

Witnesses: r

BENJAMIN B. HULL, HELEN ORFORD.

